Wasn’t it Paganini who said something like there was only
one thing worse than one guitar and that was two guitars? As
I am of a similar opinion you can imagine how my heat sank upon
receiving these CDs. I have to admit that two hours of pleasant
music for two guitars is a bit daunting but they’re here
now and here I go.

Born in Florence, Castelnuovo-Tedesco studied with Pizzetti
and was helped in his early career by Alfredo Casella. He met
Segovia in 1932 and this inspired him to write his 1st
Guitar Concerto, subsequently he wrote nearly 100 works
for the instrument. He left Italy in 1939, just before the outbreak
of war, and found himself, through the good offices of Jascha
Heifetz, for whom he had written his 2nd
Violin Concerto in 1931, in Hollywood with a contract from
Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer where, over the next fifteen years he wrote
over 200 scores. He was also an influential teacher and among
his pupils are Jerry Goldsmith, Louis Ballard and John Williams.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco is probably best remembered today for his
guitar music, especially that 1st
Concerto, which has received many recordings, the solo guitar
music and a handful of Shakespeare overtures. So now let’s
start at the beginning of these disks.

The Sonatina Canonica is a pleasant miniature, which
fills the time. It’s delightful but without depth. But
what else would you want from such a piece? After a short time
you don’t really notice that you’re listening to
canonic writing, and the mind can simply enjoy the interplay
between the instruments.

Fuga elegiaca was one of the composer’s final works,
and it is in two parts - Prelude and Fugue. The
Prelude is probably the most sheerly joyous music on
both CDs; it’s a roller-coaster ride and sets the scene
for a more solemn, but not too much so, fugue. This is
a delight. In a way, I wish that there could have been more
music like this here.

Les Guitares Bien Tempérées is a much more
serious work, by which I mean that it is not light in the way
that the Sonatina is light. These pieces are not primarily
for entertainment, but there is much music here which is truly
enjoyable. I would never have thought that it was possible to
get so much variety from two guitars. Castelnuovo-Tedesco fills
his pieces with every emotion imaginable, from pathos to, almost,
belly laugh (is that an emotion?) There are light and breezy
pieces, serious inventions, dance type pieces - very holiday
advertisement time - and all this wide variety of invention
adds up to a very satisfying and pleasurable whole.

I don’t know if you could sit through both CDs in one
sitting - I must admit that I couldn’t - but if you’re
into the guitar, then you’ll lap up every minute of these
discs.

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